February 17, 2009 -- Seoul, South Korea

Leaving for my trip turned out to be difficult. After months of planning, I still had way too much to do during my final days and ultimately did not get to everything. With my mother's assistance, however, I managed to get enough done and enough packed to make my plane.

My plane ride was pretty uneventful. There were a number of adorable babies on my flight and none of them screamed at all. I really wanted to adopt one of them. I sat next to a nice Chinese woman and her cute, well-behaved little boy, who slept during most of the trip. They live in the Domincan Republic now and she speaks Spanish, but almost no English. Consequently, our communication was very limited -- mainly she pointed to cosmetics listed in the duty free catalog and told me how much less she paid for the same things at Macy's. I tried to channel my friend, Grace, who loved learning and speaking to people in foreign languages and lived in Argentina for sometime prior to her untimely death. Unfortunately, however, she either was not with me at the time or simply could not empower me to speak Spanish.

To my friend who mocked me for buying "that blasted travel pillow" and predicted that I would be ranting about my waste of money (and you know who you are), my pillow actually was helpful not only on the plane, but also during my hour long bus rides to and from the airport at the crack of dawn -- I didn't sleep as well as I hoped I would, but it was still a worthwhile investment.

I arrived in freezing cold Seoul at about 4:30 a.m. The airport was almost empty and hardly anybody who worked there could speak enough English. Nonetheless, I found a place to store one of my bags filled with things for the kids for only about $5 a day -- conveniently located right by the check in counter for my flight to Nepal. I caught a bus to the city and then a taxi to Morning Calm bed and breakfast The B&B was a modest place run by a very nice older couple. I checked in and left a couple of hours later to meet my wonderful "Goodwill Guide", Sunrim. The Korean Tourist Office offers a fabulous guide service to tourists who speak English, Japanese, or Chinese. The guide is free, you just pay their expenses while they're showing you around. Your guide will accommodate whatever your interests are and they email you ahead of your visit to make plans with you. I understand that most guides are retirees, housewives, and students. Sunrim has a business degree, previously worked in HR consulting and had her own marketing company and is now studying to be a simultaneous interpreter. She is smart and fun, and it was a joy to spend a day and a half with her. I highly recommend this service.

Those who know me well will not be surprised to hear that, notwithstanding the B&B owner's explict, simple directions, I inexplicably decided that I was supposed to cross a street and got on a bus headed in the wrong direction. A couple of stops later, I looked up from something that I was reading to find myself in a bus depot, the only one on the bus, with the driver motioning me to get off. Not only did nobody speak English, but also nobody could understand the handwritten map that the B&B owner had given me because everything was marked on it in English. I boarded two wrong buses and nearly got very lost before I finally found the correct bus. Only when the bus pulled out of the depot and went back in the direction from which I had come did I understand the mistake that I had made. It turned out that being only a couple of stops from the end of the line saved me from going a long way in the wrong direction before realizing that something was wrong. Once I was headed in the right direction, I concentrated so hard on making sure that I got off at the right place, that I accidentally left my gloves on the bus -- not a good move considering the arctic temperature. Luckily, I had a pair of glove liners in my pocket, but they were not nearly as good as proper gloves.

Poor Sunrim was very worried about me since I did not have a cell phone and could not tell her why I was very late meeting her. She was just as sweet and eager to do whatever she could to make my visit enjoyable in person as she was in the emails that she sent me before my arrival. It was wonderful to have a guide to navigate for me (obviously, I needed that) and explain things to me. I didn't really enjoy Seoul so much that day, however, because I was cold and probably more tired than I realized, we were walking outside most of the time, and everything looked grey. I complained about the cold all day long, but Sunrim never said a word about it (even to agree with me), even though she hardly seemed dressed warmly enough for the weather. This made me feel like an annoying whiner, which is probably what she thought I was.

In the afternoon, we stopped at the Korean Tourist Office so that I could interview a coordinator about the Goodwill Guide program. It turned out that the third week of every month, they have a rack of traditional Korean clothes for tourists to try on and take pictures in and someone is there to write tourists names in Korean. It's quite cheesy, but my friend, Lynette, has taught me that life is more enjoyable when you decide to have fun with things like this, so when the coordinator asked me to choose a costume and try it on, I agreed to do so. I chose a red costume, which the coordinator told me was a wedding dress and the most expensive costume on the rack -- she said that I had good taste. When I can, I will post a photo of me in the costume. The coordinator then showed me a hall with life-sized cut-outs of photos of Korean television and movie stars. Apparently, Chinese and Japanese tourists like to take photos of themselves with the stars. Also, there are videos that you start by placing your hand into a molded handprint of the relevant star. In the next room, you can take a photo, select a background to have your photo superimposed upon, and then select a photo of a star or group of stars that you want to have in the photo with you. Once you have all of the elements, you enter your email address and send the photo to yourself. I wasn't prepared when the coordinator took a photo of me to demonstate, so my photo is pretty bad, but I'll post it anyway when I can. February is the off season, so few people were there. At other times, however, obsessed Chinese and Japanese fans come in droves to create these photographs. It's hilarious.

Even though it was difficult to enjoy the city on my first day because of the weather, I loved being shown around by Sunrim. The best part of having a local guide is that you get a chance to learn interesting random facts. For example, S. Korea has a law on the books that requires women to be permitted to take one day off a month when they are menstruating! Apparently, only very large companies actually comply with this law and, in today's economy, women need to worry about the ramifications of exercising their rights. But still, I found it amazing that they even have such a law. I also learned that Koreans are born at the age of 1 and everyone turns a year older on Jan. 1 rather than on their birthdays. So if you are born on December 31, you turn 2 the very next day! Consequently, a Korean's age may actually be up to two years older than what their age would be in America. At least that is what I understood.